Release
by Hyenaraptor
Summary: If you love something, set it free.


It began innocuously enough – occasional spells of dizziness and nausea that cleared up just as suddenly as they appeared. Enough to put a stumble in his step or make him retch up his last meal if he pushed himself a little too hard, but they were always brief and far between and so, Maya didn't think much of it. After all the man _had_ been cracking himself over the head with his buzz-axe for the past few years; surely that had to catch up with him eventually. It wasn't as though he hadn't taken far worse hits and come through just fine.

It was when the spells started becoming far more frequent – when the dizziness and nausea struck so severely that he could barely stand without her help – that Maya became concerned.

At first there was doubt; was she worrying too much? The others certainly seemed to think so. "Relax, Maya." Axton had commented one day after she'd voiced her concerns to them. "Krieg's managed to dodge every bug that's come through HQ for _years_ now, his luck was bound to run out at some point. For Christ's sake he's practically turned setting yourself on fire into a recreational activity. He'll be fine – he's your old man, not your kid."

She'd thought as much herself at first, tried to ignore the misgivings and the growing suspicions, simply do what she could to help him when he needed her. "In sickness and in health", as was vowed.

It wasn't long after that very conversation that, while coming back from a mission, Krieg fell to his hands and knees and vomited more blood than bile and finally prompted a very anxious Maya to nervously approach Tannis and ask to see her collected research files on slag testing.

"I _suppose_ …" she replied with a sigh and a flippant wave of her hand. "If only because I trust you not to leak saliva all over them like half the other mouth-breathers taking up residence in this city would. However, I feel obligated to offer you a word of caution – considering the… _questionable_ state of your spouse, you may not like what you read…"

Maya wasn't sure she'd like what she'd read either, but standing by and watching him continue to suffer from this mysterious illness wasn't an option – she had to know. Then maybe they could find a way to treat him.

That night, as Krieg tossed and turned restlessly in their bed, Maya found herself at her desk, illuminated by a single dim, dirty table lamp, flipping open the thick folder stuffed with several years' worth of scrupulous information on the effects of slag testing in animals… and human beings.

The folder appeared to contain a combination of research taken from Hyperion's testing facilities in the Highlands years ago and Tannis' own findings in the time since – she flipped through the stacks of yellowing papers, skimming over convoluted data tables and struggling to make out Tannis' frenzied note scribbles in the borders of the pages. Included were quite a few photographs documenting the results of these experiments; evidently, the lucky ones died outright. The others were left with mutations and disfigurements so grotesque even Maya had a hard time looking at them for too long. _Perhaps_ , Maya thought as she examined a photo of a man screaming in agony as his skin dissolved, _Krieg was fortunate that the worst of the damage done to him was mental._

She found what she was looking for near the bottom of the pile – a bound collection of documents in newer condition than much of the others. The enlarged title font near the top of the front page was impossible to miss:

 **SLAG EXPERIMENTATION: LONG-TERM EFFECTS, SLAG POISONING SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS**

Holding the packet closer to the light, she began to read, forcing herself to drink in every last grisly detail. She hadn't gone farther than a couple of paragraphs before the first icy tendrils of dread were snaking their way down her spine.

… _Slag poisoning has been shown in some cases to have an unusually long latency period that can last several years before symptoms begin to appear… initial symptoms include increasingly frequent bouts of dizziness, nausea, and disorientation…_

Fear nestled into the pit of her stomach, a living thing that writhed and clawed and grew heavier with every second her silver eyes continued to race across the pages, wide with dismay…

… _bleeding caused by ulcers… severe fatigue… loss of weight… delirium…_

The weight in her stomach was so immense she thought it may very well drag her through the floorboards beneath.

… _organ failure and eventual death…_

She hadn't even realized her hands were shaking.

… _no known treatment…_

The packet slipped from her fingers; it fluttered off the edge of the desk and onto the floor. She made no move to pick it up. She leaned forward until her hands met her face, reeling from a tsunami of despair unlike anything she'd ever felt.

Krieg – her best friend, her partner, the man she loved – was dying.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

A low groan rose up from behind her and she turned to watch Krieg yet again roll himself over, stuck in one of the feverish half-sleeps that left him more exhausted than when he first closed his eyes. Even from this distance she was acutely aware of the wheeze that bubbled just below the surface of every breath he took.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there, numb, defeated, before she finally turned off the lamp and crossed the room to lay down beside him. She heard him sigh, felt him draw closer to her comforting presence until he could wrap a muscular arm around her and pull her against him. Though he was warm, _too_ warm, she could feel the cold sweat slick on his skin and every chill that wracked his body.

Maya bit her lip to keep the tears at bay. She'd get no rest that night.

* * *

His health declined rapidly after that.

The nausea fits became a near-daily occurrence, leaving him barely able to stand, much less go out on missions, and so, Krieg was officially retired from Vault-hunting. To say that this devastated him was an understatement; Maya had never seen him so restless… so _depressed_. Much of his days were spent confined to their bed, watching old Godzilla films on the ECHOnet, staring at the ceiling, mumbling incoherently to himself, or lost in a sickly, semiconscious doze from which nightmares often roused him. The other Vault Hunters, now painfully aware of the seriousness of his plight, tried their best to distract him, sometimes coming upstairs to hang out with him in their room and tell him about the day's carnage, but this only seemed to make Krieg more upset that he himself couldn't be out there joining in on the action. He barely ate, barely drank… dehydration was a constant battle. He lost weight, much of it muscle mass; his once powerfully toned body grew gaunter, paler, more frail with each passing day.

Maya had all but given up Vault-hunting pursuits herself – these days she rarely left Sanctuary, choosing to stay close to home to care for her ailing husband. She spent as much time by his side as possible, helping him move around, reading to him, or just simply holding him, soothing away the terrors that plagued him even if it was only for a little while. She used her Siren powers to alleviate as much of his pain as she possibly could, lending him her strength, her life, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough. No matter what she did he still awoke screaming in agony as his body slowly tore itself apart and left her fighting back tears at her own helplessness.

Krieg wasn't stupid. He wasn't oblivious.

He knew he was dying. And that made it all the harder to watch.

One day Maya had entered the room to find him leaning against the desk, his back to her, reading through a packet of papers that she recognized with a jolt of horror as the data on slag testing symptoms. With so much on her mind these days, she must've forgotten to pick it up off the floor.

She took a tentative step towards him. "Krieg…"

He turned slowly to look at her; his mask was off, the look on his scarred face one of deep sadness and resignation.

"My meat is rotten…" he rasped quietly, staring back down at the documents still clasped in his hand.

Maya didn't say anything – what the hell _could_ she say? – she just strode across the room and practically fell against him, arms around his waist, face pushed into his chest so he wouldn't have to see the tears filling her eyes. He too was silent, laying his cheek atop her head while he stared off into space in hazy contemplation.

They didn't get to stay like this long before he became too dizzy to stand any longer.

* * *

"I just don't know what to do anymore, Zed…"

It was dimly lit as ever inside Dr. Zed's Sanctuary clinic, though mercifully much cleaner of spilled blood than it used to be. Thin ribbons of moonlight streamed in through the shuttered windows, the streets beyond them quiet; most people were asleep around this time, but like many nights Maya had far too much on her mind to rest, and instead had chanced leaving a slumbering Krieg alone long enough for her to seek out Zed (who never seemed to sleep himself for some reason) for advice. Licensed or not he was the closest thing they had to a real doctor around here, and the only one who might know how they could help Krieg medically.

"He's getting worse. Every day he gets worse." Maya sat across from Zed at his desk, anxiously twisting the wedding ring on her left hand as she spoke. It wasn't extravagant or particularly fancy-looking (few things were on Pandora), but Krieg had given it to her and that meant the world. "He can barely get out of bed anymore. He won't eat, won't drink, he hardly even sleeps because of the pain and the nightmares…" She looked up at Zed through her tears. "He screams about death. He _wants_ to die, Zed. He told me."

Her voice cracked and she had to stop for fear of breaking down. Zed's eyes were sympathetic above his bloodstained surgeon's mask. As long as he'd known them Maya and Krieg had shared an unlikely bond; he couldn't imagine what the mental strain from having to watch someone you cared so deeply for waste away must be like, though the dark bags under her eyes and palpable aura of stress gave him an idea. "I know it's hard, Maya…" he said softly. "You've been dealin' with this a pretty long time now. From what I've read up on 'bout slag poisonin' it sounds like he's not far off from total organ failure. I'm sorry, hon…"

"But surely there must be _something_ we can do?" Maya looked back up at him; the pleading in her expression could break your heart. "If it's his organs maybe we could find a way to transplant new ones for him? I'm sure we could find suitable replacements in time if we try hard enough, we go through plenty of bandits-"

"Maya…" Zed sighed, running his fingers through his graying hair, "there's… really nothin' we can do at this point. Even if we _could_ find him some new organs, and a place that could perform the surgery – I mean, I _am_ a doctor but that's a-ways beyond my skill set – he's too weak. He'd die right there on the table. Besides, even his blood is crawlin' with slag; it'd just poison the new organs all over again..."

"So we could give him blood transfusions!" Even as the words tumbled out Maya knew she sounded ridiculous, that she was grasping at straws that weren't there, but she couldn't stop herself. "It's just… I… I can't… I can't watch him suffer anymore, Zed. He doesn't deserve to die like this. I'll do anything, give anything… to take away his pain."

Zed ruminated for a time, staring at his hands clasped on the desk. Eventually he sat back in his chair, sighing deeply before continuing. "There is… one thing we could do." he began. He spoke slowly, carefully, measuring his words. There was no easy way to say what he was about to suggest.

An ember of hope kindled in Maya's heart. "What? What is it?"

A flicker of guilt passed through Zed's eyes at how she perked up. "Well, it's… somethin' that would end his sufferin'… for good. One shot. That's all it'd take. Quick and painless."

Maya's hope quickly turned into horror at what he was implying. " _ZED_! For the love of God I'm not going to _shoot_ my husband like some kind of rabid dog in the street-"

"That's… not the kinda shot I had in mind." he interrupted, somewhat awkwardly. Zed pushed back his chair and stood, crossing the room to a set of locked cabinets on the other side. He fished a keyring from his pocket and, after thumbing through several keys, used one to open the last locker on the right, which he rummaged through for a minute until he turned around, holding something in his hand. As he returned to the desk Maya saw it was a vial of clear fluid; a peeling label with a small, crudely-drawn skull was stuck to the side.

He placed the vial on the desk before her. "Now this drug right here…" he murmured, "is about as sweet a release as you could ever ask for. One shot in the arm and that's it. Real peaceful… he wouldn't feel a thing. Like goin' to sleep…"

Maya shook her head slowly, her horrified eyes glued to the vial. "Zed… no… no, there… there has to be another way… I can't…"

Her voice sounded weak, hollow – not even she believed her own words. Because she knew, deep down, underneath all the hurt and denial that had been eating away at her for so long, that Zed was right. Krieg was slipping away, slowly and painfully, and all the surgery and transfusions in the world couldn't help him. There was only one way to cut short inevitable months of steady organ failure and alleviate his suffering for good.

"In my humble opinion, it's the right thing to do." Zed said, sitting on the edge of the desk. "I know it's terrifyin' to think about, and o' course I don't want you to feel like it's somethin' I'd ever push on the two o' ya. Just know that, well… it's an option."

Maya wouldn't look at him; her watery eyes drifted down to her hands, clenched in her lap, watching the filtered moonlight reflect dully on the surface of her wedding ring. The silence in the room weighed heavily, uncomfortably so, until she finally spoke.

"…Thanks, Zed." It was barely a whisper. She stood up, slipping her hands into the pockets of her pants. "I'll… get back to you on that. Soon."

"I understand…" he replied. He walked her to the door; all the energy seemed to have gone out of her, her feet dragging like they were tied to concrete blocks. "If you need anythin' hon, don't hesitate to ask, okay?"

She nodded, turning away from him so he wouldn't see the agony on her face. He patted her softly on the back before closing the door behind her.

The walk back to the building she shared with the other Vault Hunters as home took no longer than a minute, but tonight it felt as though every step she took were a mile. The litter-strewn streets of the city were cold, quiet, still. She was grateful there was no one around to ask her why it looked like the weight of the world was on her shoulders, why there were trails of wetness drying on her cheeks.

At some point she ended up back home, kicking off her shoes and climbing wearily back into bed beside Krieg without even bothering to get undressed, though she had no idea how she could possibly sleep with Zed's words still echoing in her mind. Turning restlessly her attention was caught by a framed picture on the bedside table next to her – it was from her and Krieg's wedding day, a modest but lovely little affair. She was smiling, laughing, her arms wrapped around the neck of a dapperly-dressed Krieg, whose unmasked face was pressed against her cheek, aglow with a rare kind of joy that didn't come from the blood of his enemies.

The blissful ignorance in the photo broke something in her, a dam that cracked and burst; she turned away from it and pressed herself closer to Krieg, seeking desperate comfort in his presence.

 _While it was still there._

Maya buried her face in her pillow so that her sobs wouldn't wake him.

* * *

It was the seizure, sudden and violent, that did it.

It was no more than a couple of days later when Maya was snapped awake by the sound of a heavy body hitting the floor – Krieg was slumped in the doorway to the bathroom, convulsing, choking, a bloody froth bubbling at the corners of his mouth. She was at his side in seconds, struggling to turn him, help him breathe through the fluid pooling in his lungs. Dark blood was heaved up, spattering against the floorboards. Sharpened teeth bit involuntarily at scarred lips, covering them in puncture marks. He didn't seem to be aware of her voice or touch; as the spasms wracked his body his eye, glassy and bloodshot, stared straight through her into nothing.

She was forced to phaselock his body into stillness and that's what convinced her that they were out of time.

When there came a knock at his door and Zed opened it to find Maya standing there, her eyes swimming with pain, she didn't have to say anything. He knew. He went inside and when he came back he pressed the vial of poison and a capped syringe into her open palm, giving her hand a squeeze as he did so.

He knew when a job was too personal. Even for him.

The walk back home was akin to that of a death row inmate marching towards the execution chamber (though, she realized with a pang of sorrow, that inmate was _also_ the executioner). Inside the atmosphere crackled with tense somberness; Axton, Salvador, Gaige and Lilith were seated at the kitchen table, while Zer0, Mordecai and Brick milled about the room in contemplative silence. Glances were exchanged – they'd all been awaiting the inevitable and made peace with the ailing psycho, but that hadn't made it any easier to accept when Maya had earlier told them that it was time.

Lilith stood and took a step towards her as though she were about to say something, but stopped; she had no idea what she could possibly say. Years ago she'd too lost a lover, but it hadn't been anything like this.

Maya briefly paused only to silently acknowledge them all before continuing up the stairs to her and Krieg's room. The combined weight of their pity was too much right now.

As she neared the top of the staircase she heard someone sniffling from the darkened hallway ahead, and when she got there found Tina sitting on the floor beside their bedroom door, hugging her knees to her chest. It broke her heart. Though Tina was grown now, and a formidable Vault Hunter in her own right, she had long ago glommed onto Krieg as another of her surrogate parental figures after Roland's death, and the two had become close over their shared penchant for destruction of the explosive variety. The poor girl had experienced enough loss in her short life already; to know yet another dear guardian would slip away brought all of that hurt back.

She ran comforting fingers through Tina's scruffy blonde hair as she passed. It was hard to look her in the face as she stood outside the door, the weight of the poison vial in her hand feeling like it might as well have been a loaded gun.

The sour reek of illness hit her like a gust of wind as she stepped into the bedroom, a scent she'd grown woefully used to. The only sound came from the pallid shell of a man sprawled on his back in the bed, the covers twisted about his legs – tiny, shallow death-rattles hissing between parted teeth. She wasn't sure if he knew she was there, even when she forced herself to cross the room and slump into a chair beside the bed. He was hard to look at, even now; he was almost unrecognizable as the man she'd married. Once strong, proud muscles had all but atrophied, leaving him thin and hunched-looking. His marred chest rose and fell with rapid breaths barely perceptible to the eye while his muscles jumped and twitched with the spasmodic fervor of electrical shocks. He wasn't quite awake, nor really asleep – just adrift in a restless void of suffering.

She tentatively reached out to stroke his cheek. As her hand met his skin his neck jerked, eyelids fluttering listlessly.

"Mmmm… May… Maya..."

"I'm here, sweetheart…"

He turned his head to look at her with his good eye, very slowly, like it weighed far too much. There was no more fire in it, no vitality; just tired, hopeless emptiness.

"My insides are screaming…"

"I know… I know." Maya bit back her tears. "…I'm sorry, Krieg. I'm so sorry. So sorry that you've had to go through this. You deserve better."

He shook his head weakly. "No… _I_ ' _m_ sorry."

"Sorry?" She was puzzled. "You have nothing to be sorry for…"

"No…" he repeated. He turned his face to the ceiling, his eye drifting closed again. For a moment she was scared she might have already lost him, until he suddenly continued.

"…We were supposed to be forever…" he murmured. With fumbling, shaking fingers he reached up to grasp at the pewter ring on a chain around his neck. His fingers were so big he'd taken to wearing his wedding band this way; he almost never took it off. "A spectacular bloody monument to love and destruction... we'd battle as one and the lowly fleshlings would cower before us like a deathstorm until we breathed our last… but..." A wheezy sigh escaped him. "My meat spoiled…"

The last few words emerged as a crawling whisper and he trailed off again, panting shallowly. Even just speaking drained what little energy he had left. It took him several moments to muster up the strength to keep going. "My meat spoiled and I was like a skag with its legs ripped off… couldn't kill anymore, couldn't help. Just laid there and bled and cried…" His weak voice was submissive, almost ashamed. "You tried to put my moldy pieces back together again and gave up the hunts to do so…"

Krieg looked up at his beloved wife, expression one of utmost terror. "Do you hate me?"

Maya didn't know what to say; she was aghast at the implication. Over the years Krieg had become much better at straightforward communication, but still she'd had no idea he was harboring this kind of guilt.

He was afraid she resented him for having to spend so much of her time and energy taking care of him.

"Oh Krieg, no…" she whispered, taking his hand and squeezing it. She tried to ignore the clamminess of his skin. "I could never hate you. It's not your fault. It was never your fault. We had no idea…" She gulped back the lump in her throat. "You've fought this so hard for so long… I just wish you didn't have to. You're stronger than you realize and I'm so proud of you."

His entire body relaxed, the weight of years of fear and doubt lifting away, but he couldn't even manage a smile. "Don't want to fight anymore…" he whispered. He seemed to be struggling hard just to stay awake. "The fire in my belly's gone out and I'm just a cold furnace of bone and meat... I just want to sleep…"

A trickle of blood oozed from his right nostril, dripping down the warped, discolored skin on that side of his face. She wiped it away with her thumb. His gaze was distant, looking somewhere past her; she realized, as she followed it, that he was staring at the photo of them on their wedding day on the bedside table, still running his finger along the edge of his ring.

She became acutely aware of the vial of poison and the syringe again, still cold in her other hand. She opened it, watching them clink together softly.

"What's that…?" Krieg wheezed.

Her throat suddenly went dry. "It's… something to help you sleep." she said finally. "It'll put you to sleep and… and you'll never be in pain again."

"Never?"

Maya met her spouse's eye – silver locked on orange – and not a single word passed between them. It wasn't necessary. Since that fateful day they'd first met what felt like ages ago, on that train platform in the middle of the Pandoran wastes, what had begun as a tentative trust had ultimately blossomed into a partnership powerful enough to bridge the gap between Krieg's separate personalities and know each other so intimately entire conversations could be had in a touch or a glance.

It was a bond they'd fought hard for. And as they stared into each other in knowing silence she could see in him the understanding, the resignation… and the relief.

She nodded, allowing the tears to slip silently down her face. "Never."

Every ounce of tension in his body dissolved; he released her hand to turn his inner arm towards her, where she could easily reach a vein.

"Okay…"

With shaking hands Maya jabbed the needle into the top of the vial, watching the syringe fill to the top with the clear liquid as she pulled back on the plunger. It was so quiet she was almost sure Krieg could hear her heart hammering in her chest as he watched her bring the needle to the crook of his arm, hesitating just above the skin.

"I love you… pretty lady."

The sudden, gentle whisper of her old nickname, with such tenderness, cut into her like the edge of a cold knife and in that moment she nearly broke. She forced herself to look at him, and saw only affection and appreciation reflected back at her; a man madly enamored with the very woman about to end his life by her own hand. If this was how it'd end, then there was no other way he'd rather have it.

She was his beautiful angel of mercy. She would set him free.

She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his in a kiss that he eagerly returned, letting it linger even when she could taste the blood in his mouth, because she knew it would be their last.

"I love you too."

Krieg smiled up at her, even as she emptied the syringe into his arm and laid her head against his chest, letting the tears pool on his scarred skin. Calloused fingers came to rest on her cheek just before she felt his heart grow still in his chest and watched the last dying ember of life in his eye flicker out.

The world came to a standstill; the concept of time no longer felt real. She wasn't sure how long she sat there, her body draped across his in a final embrace, before she became faintly aware of other people filing silently into the room, of thin arms wrapping around her and pulling her away. Gaige and Tina held her upright, their sniffles soft while Axton laid a comforting hand on her back.

Maya reeled back, letting the empty syringe roll from her fingers onto the floor. As she did so her eyes caught again the wedding picture on the bedside table, the smiling faces of herself and the first person to ever truly love her. Smiling faces who'd thought they were forever.

A love doomed from the start.

Maya buried her face in her hands. Her wails of grief could be heard from the streets.


End file.
